By CLARE FARNSWORTH, P-I REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Sunday, November 19, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO -- Mike Holmgren could not have driven home his primary talking point last week more emphatically if the Seahawks coach had rented a skywriting plane to spell it out in huge letters over the team's practice facility:

Don't take a breath against an improved, and improving, San Francisco 49ers team.

Leading tackler Lofa Tatupu could not have been more adamant about rallying to the ball if he had taken out ads on the NFL Network and ESPN:

The repeated warnings that reached a deafening level as the Seahawks prepared for Sunday's game at Monster Park apparently fell on deaf ears.

The Seahawks lost 20-14 because they committed three first-half turnovers to help stake the 49ers to a 20-0 halftime lead and were run over repeatedly by Gore, the second-year back who rushed for 212 yards -- and made the return of reigning league MVP Shaun Alexander nothing more than a footnote.

"We just did things today that made it hard to win a game," fullback Mack Strong said, "so it's not a surprise."

The loss, which followed an emotional victory over the St. Louis Rams last week that seemingly gave the Seahawks control of the NFC West, dropped their record to 6-4 and trimmed their division lead to one game -- over the 49ers (5-5), not the Rams (4-6).

This was not supposed to happen.

Not in this game. Not against this team. Not after the Seahawks had completed a series sweep of the Rams. But it did, in unfathomable fashion.

"As much as I tried to light the fire and express my concern, the players are not robots," Holmgren said. "Hopefully, it's a good wakeup call for us."

One that was eerily similar to the alarming losses to the Bears (37-6), Vikings (31-13) and Chiefs (35-28) earlier this season.

It happened this time because the Seahawks made too many mistakes on offense and missed too many tackles on defense.

Seneca Wallace, making perhaps his final start before Pro Bowl quarterback Matt Hasselbeck returns from the sprained right knee that has sidelined him for the past four games, threw two interceptions in the first half that the 49ers parlayed into 10 points.

He threw a third pick with less than two minutes to play when the Seahawks had one last gasp at escaping with a victory.

"Anytime any quarterback has a game like that, usually you lose," Holmgren said. "If Matt Hasselbeck threw that many interceptions you'd lose."

One of the six passes Wallace did complete in the first half was fumbled away by tight end Jerramy Stevens, setting up another 49ers field goal.

"We were a little careless," Holmgren said, understating the obvious.

As for Gore, he came into the game leery of taking his first hit after suffering a concussion in last week's game against the Lions.

"I was nervous. Real nervous," Gore said. "After I got the first hit, I was all right."

The obvious question: Did the Seahawks ever hit Gore?

They did, of course, but he broke runs of 51, 50, 23 and 20 yards in becoming the fourth back in franchise history to rush for 200 or more yards against the Seahawks -- and the first since then-Colt Edgerrin James gashed them for 219 in 2000.

How could this happen? After Gore went off for 159 yards in less than three quarters in Detroit last week, the Seahawks defenders were preaching getting to him -- and in large numbers.

Instead, they whiffed, fumed and left frustrated.

"He gets so low to the ground, sometimes it's hard to see him behind their big offensive linemen," linebacker Julian Peterson said.

"And then he's so fast."

It was a combination that allowed Gore to "gut and go," as he hit holes in the middle of the line, disappeared for an instant and then exploded into the secondary. The lethal third ingredient was the Seahawks missing so many tackles.

"I'm still kind of baffled how they got 200 yards on us," Peterson said.

Still, the Seahawks had a chance to pull this one out after Wallace threw touchdown passes to Deion Branch (38 yards) and Darrell Jackson (41) in the second half.

Faced with a fourth-and-2 from their own 37-yard line, just after the two-minute warning, Holmgren called a play that should have picked up the first down: Alexander running to the left side behind All-Pro tackle Walter Jones and with an escort from Strong, his Pro Bowl lead blocker.

Rather than a possession-sustaining run, Alexander was stopped for a 1-yard loss as defensive tackle Marques Douglas somehow knifed in to swat Alexander to the turf.

That's how this day went for the Seahawks.

"We feel bad. We knew we should have had this game," Jackson said. "This is a team we maybe should have beat. But we're still leading the division."